Category: Pakistan

What Pakistan left behind

By Salil Tripathi: Newsweek

??Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World for Newsweek

Old ghosts stalk the streets of Dhaka. Over the past month, tens of thousands of people have gathered at Shahbag, near the National Museum in downtown Dhaka, demanding justice over the war crimes of 1971. There is a large portrait of Jahanara Imam, the ?mother of martyrs,? who lost her son during the war, and fought for justice for all those who perished. She died in 1994, but her spirit is vividly present at Shahbag. Continue reading “What Pakistan left behind”

Playing ball with the Jamaat

The Jamaat?s worldview is antithetical to the kind of nation Bangladeshis have repeatedly wanted to build

By?Salil Tripathi?First Published in Live Mint:?Wed, Mar 13 2013

Bangladeshi police detain a supporter of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party during a protest in Dhaka. Photo: AFP
Bangladeshi police detain a supporter of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party during a protest in Dhaka. Photo: AFP
I write this column with some regret. As a college student, among the bylines I grew up admiring was that of S.N.M. Abdi, who was a young reporter in the late 1970s, and exposed one of the most horrendous examples of police brutality in post-independence India?the blinding of undertrial prisoners in Bhagalpur in Bihar. Some politicians defended that barbarism, saying the practice had ?social sanction?. But Abdi rightly focused on the atrocity, stirring the nation?s conscience, which was at that time still reeling from the effects of the emergency. Continue reading “Playing ball with the Jamaat”

Fire in Sonar Bangla

Khaleda Zia?s snub to Pranab Mukherjee does not matter in the long run. But she is making a strategic blunder by staying aligned with Jamaat

By?Salil Tripathi First Published in Live Mint:?Fri, Mar 08 2013

When President Pranab Mukherjee visited Bangladesh earlier this week, its opposition leader Khaleda Zia (above) of the BNP did not meet him, because of public strikes that her ally, Jamaat-i-Islami, has been calling to protest the verdicts of the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal. Photo: AFP
When President Pranab Mukherjee visited Bangladesh earlier this week, its opposition leader Khaleda Zia (above) of the BNP did not meet him, because of public strikes that her ally, Jamaat-i-Islami, has been calling to protest the verdicts of the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal. Photo: AFP
Earlier this week, when President?Pranab Mukherjee?visited Bangladesh, its opposition leader?Khaleda Zia?of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) did not meet him, because of public strikes that her ally, Jamaat-i-Islami, has been calling to protest the verdicts of the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal. The BNP called another strike this week in sympathy with the Jamaat, whose leaders are, one by one, being convicted of war crimes by the Tribunal. Continue reading “Fire in Sonar Bangla”

Crowds and justice at Shahbag

A dominant Jamaat will make Bangladesh look more like Pakistan, a joyless prospect citizens are rejecting loudly

By?Salil Tripathi?in Live Mint?First Published:?Wed, Feb 27 2013

Bangladesh?s quest for closure threatens to morph into the paralysing dysfunctionality that has characterized its politics. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Bangladesh?s quest for closure threatens to morph into the paralysing dysfunctionality that has characterized its politics. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
One of the truly significant aspects about the emotional upsurge at Shahbag in Dhaka?the hundreds of thousands of candles, the portrait of Jahanara Imam who lost her son in the liberation war in 1971 and fought for the rest of her life seeking justice?is that an overwhelmingly large number of the demonstrators are under the age of 40. Most were not born when Bangladesh emerged from its blood-soaked birth. Their fight is outwardly for an even harsher punishment (meaning death) for Abdul Kader Mullah, the Jamaat-i-Islami leader who foolishly flashed a victory sign when he was sentenced to life in prison for complicity in war crimes, and others against whom verdicts are awaited. But more fundamentally, they are trying to regain history, to assert their identity. Too often has the promise of Bangla nationalism been stolen, its national aspiration challenged, its spirit of unity based on language?irrespective of faith?reviled, its past rewritten, and the generation that fought for independence betrayed. Now it is time to reclaim the past. Continue reading “Crowds and justice at Shahbag”

Nobel Committee Asks Obama ?Nicely? To Return Peace Prize

By NORM DE PLEUME in The Final Edition

Nobel Committee Asks Obama ?Nicely? To Return Peace Prize
Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, said today that President Obama ?really ought to consider? returning his Nobel Peace Prize Medal immediately, including the ?really nice? case it came in. Continue reading “Nobel Committee Asks Obama ?Nicely? To Return Peace Prize”

A 40-Year Quest for Justice

By Shahidul Alam for New York Times

Bangladesh’s Winter of Discontent
Published: February 28, 2013. DHAKA, Bangladesh

Rashin Kheiriyeh
More than four decades after independence, protesters in Bangladesh are demanding that leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, as well as others, finally be punished for war crimes. Puppets of the alleged war criminals dangle from nooses in Shahbagh Square in Dhaka. Credit: Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World
More than four decades after independence, protesters in Bangladesh are demanding that leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami political party, as well as others, finally be punished for war crimes.
Puppets of the alleged war criminals dangle from nooses in Shahbagh Square in Dhaka.
Credit: Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World

FOR the past month, tens of thousands of Bangladeshis have filled Shahbagh Square here, demanding justice for crimes committed in 1971, when Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) attained its independence from Pakistan.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Shahbagh Square for the funeral of Ahmed Rajib Haider, a blogger who was rumored to have been murdered for his criticism of the Jamaat-e-Islami party. Credit: Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World
Thousands of protesters gathered in Shahbagh Square for the funeral of Ahmed Rajib Haider, a blogger who was rumored to have been murdered for his criticism of the Jamaat-e-Islami party.
Credit: Shahidul Alam/Drik/Majority World

Continue reading “A 40-Year Quest for Justice”

Homeward bound

Even the pit stop in Dhaka is threatened by Jamaat’s hartal tomorrow. I am hoping it will be even more of a flop than previous ones. Those of you who missed the interview in BBC (1:09 into the programme where I talk about Shahbagh). Look out for the oped in New York Times on Friday and the interview on Listening Post in Al Jazeera on Saturday.

My humble abode in Salzburg, but many old friends, Pablo Bartholomew, Bill Kouwenhowen and Nii Obodaii fresh from Chobi Mela VII. Stephen Mayes, Enrico Bossan, Yukiko
My humble abode in Salzburg, but old friends, Pablo Bartholomew, Bill Kouwenhoven and Nii Obodai fresh from Chobi Mela VII. Stephen Mayes, Enrico Bossan, Yukiko Yamagata and many others, plus all the new friends I made made, plus the sumptuous meals made it easier to bear

Here are some pictures taken on my way back:
It’s a hard life. On the rare occasions when I get bumped up to business class.
My plane waiting at the boarding gate
The courtyard
Sunny afternoon in Salzburg
 
 

Shahbagh online response

By Dr. Christian Prokopp on click Ittefaq

Dr Christian Prokopp
Dr. Christian Prokopp
follow him on twitter@prokopp, Google+ and read his blog
The news is fresh and details are only emerging about the murder of Ahmed Rajib Haider Shuvo, a blogger involved in the Shahbag protest. In today?s world we can view immediately online the outcry this provokes. Last week I wrote about the online echo on Twitter the Shahbag protest had. This time I am taking a snapshot of Twitter just after the news of the murder broke to illustrate how quickly such an event spreads. Continue reading “Shahbagh online response”

YOUTH UPRISING AT SHAHBAGH

Reclaiming Ekattur: fashi, Bangali

By Rahnuma Ahmed

Prologue
EVEN THOUGH I was dying to, pressing work — to do with other activist engagements, the Tazreen factory fire, communal attacks in Ramu — forced me to stay away the first few days from the youth uprising which began at Shahbagh on February 5. The spontaneous sit-in, rapidly gathered into its fold hundreds of thousands of people who, driven by a deep sense of injustice, have felt compelled to go to Shahbagh to ‘right’ the wrongs of history committed in post-independence Bangladesh: war collaborators of 1971 have not only been unpunished in the ensuing four decades but have been reinstated politically, financially and socially at the national level. Continue reading “YOUTH UPRISING AT SHAHBAGH”